Masks and Faces
by Skarmoree
Summary: There is an unspoken rule of the universe that states that you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and to your family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are. Adrien Agreste was an exception to this rule.
There is an unspoken rule of the universe that states that you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and to your family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are.

Adrien Agreste was an exception to this rule.

Now, it wasn't that he was trying to defy the stars, no. He was trying to follow them but events in his life forced it in another direction, one he would rather pretend never was to be.

Several beings are at fault for this wild mix-up in faces.  
Firstly, his mother. Adrien loved his mother above all else, and she was the only one to see his true face. Yet that all changed one day when the boy was quite young.

His mother disappeared.  
She didn't die, per se, nor did she run away in the dead of night. No one was quite sure what happened to her, not even her own husband and son.  
So the third face became dusted and tarnished from underuse.

The second being at fault was his own father, Gabriel Agreste. Adrien's father was always distant whilst our boy was in youth, but since his mother's strange circumstances, grew colder and withdrew from his remaining family. Upkeeping a strict household and schedule, this gradually worsened over time. Adrien's first face became his only face, a quiet, non-questioning boy who followed his father's every demand.  
His second face, too, began to sit on a shelf, collecting dust.

Adrien was a boy with one face, a boy who took to modelling, fencing, learning Chinese, piano lessons and being homeschooled without once any sort of rebellion.

And then a rather unexpected being jumped into the mix. _Plagg,_ it called itself, and _it_ was a _he,_ a Kwami to be more precise. A quantic, god-like being, millennia old and perhaps even more. He gave Adrien a piece of jewellery, a silvery-white ring, and told him to put it on.

This ring allowed him to transform, along with the help of Plagg, into Chat Noir, a baton-wielding, destruction causing cat superhero.

Adrien was highly confused the first time he transformed. One would be if they suddenly had cat ears fixed to their head and an all-too-long belt forming a tail, which, strangely enough, _flicked_ to and fro with the boy's emotions. Now, other features that caused bewilderment in the holder were the paw-print moulded soles to his boots, the claw-like gloves covering his hands, a _golden bell_ at his neck and, when he looked in the mirror, the black mask covering the upper part of his face, thus hiding his identity. Adrien, or rather, Chat Noir, also became aware of his now cat-like eyes, no white being visible. His irises also became slitted and, as a bonus, he was given the ability to see in the dark.

Back to the story at hand.  
Chat Noir had no ties to the Agreste name, and no use for being so formal and ready to follow orders. Chat Noir was free.  
He could gleefully jump over the buildings of Paris with little to no hesitation.  
Of course, being a superhero did have its faults, and he wasn't quite as free as he'd like.

But he was a person with morals, and so did the right thing. Chat Noir went about saving people.  
Paris was a big city, and so, as logic would stand it, was full of crimes. Yet, because it was such a big city, also meant that it was impossible to be in two places at once, especially as Adrien Agreste _and_ Chat Noir.

That is where Ladybug came in.  
Ladybug was also under ownership of a Kwami, her piece of jewellery, or _Miraculous_ as they learnt to call them, a pair of spotted earrings. Ladybug was a beautiful young woman with a red-and-black spotted theme and the power of luck on her side.  
Yet it was her _eyes_ that brought out the second face from hiding, once again making the boy smile. Striking blue, bright and oceanic, which Chat Noir (and in extent Adrien Agreste) fell in love with in a near instant. It was soon that this love spread to the whole of Ladybug, not just her beautiful eyes that he only ever saw from behind her mask.

We are once again getting off topic. Where were we? Ah yes, faces.

Superheroes have to live a double life, with a secret identity and an alter ego to withhold. This causes such a problem with the rule of three faces to a person.  
Ladybug had three. Her public face, doubled up as her superhero identity, her private face, shown to her friends and family whilst out of her mask, and her true face, which even she did not know of yet.

Chat Noir, or in this case, Adrien, as of yet had only two. His public face, also known as his Adrien side, and his 'private' face, his Chat Noir face, the fun-loving, free superhero he could be with no restraint. But, as you could probably gather, this second face when called back into use had changed. It was no longer a face for his family to see, and his only childhood friend, a certain Chloé Bourgeois, was not at all worthy to see this side of him. Yet it was an improvement, and the return of some of his personality. Adrien Agreste, the boy with one face, became the boy with two.

What happened to his third face, you ask? Well, that is indeed a tale to tell.

A time came where Adrien was, unexpectedly, given the privilege of attending a public school, some Collège Françoise Dupont, situated close to his home. Of course, this privilege did have its own catches, the first being his frequent pull-outs to photo shoots and modelling practices, and the second being the necessity to transform into Chat Noir at any sign of danger.

This danger became a lot more hazardous as time went on, with the rise of a super villain by the not-so-threatening name of Hawk Moth. Hawk Moth had the unique ability to use butterflies, as a means of possessing someone by use of their strong negative emotions. These _akuma,_ as they were called, in butterfly form and human vessel, were being used to try and steal the miraculous off Ladybug and Chat Noir.  
It certainly put a dent into Adrien's education, (and presumably Ladybug's) a dent that was only countered by his father's strict parenting and his frequent extracurriculars.

So, as it would be said, when not fighting Hawk Moth's akumas behind a mask, nor being at home hiding behind a mask (figurative this time), Adrien Agreste got the chance to be a normal schoolboy.  
And this said schoolboy had friends. A whole class of friends, in fact.  
There was Alix, Kim, Mylène, Nathanaël, Juleka, Rose, and many many more, and also his childhood friend Chloé and her (to put it simply) loyal assistant Sabrina. Yet the strongest friendships he made were within Alya, a computer whizz, Marinette, a sweet, shy girl, and Nino, his best friend for what would more than likely be the rest of their lives.

And so came the reappearance of Adrien's second face.  
Ah, I see you've been reading closely. 'How can that be? Adrien's second face is Chat Noir' And this is a fact that I, the author, can affirm.  
Adrien Agreste now had three faces, just like anybody else. What differed to the law of the universe was the fact that this second face shown in school, was in true fact his real second face. This was his real private face, to be shown to family (not so much in his case) and friends.

So what was this boy's true face, the one that went into hiding with his mother's circumstantial disappearance?  
Well, let me tell you.

Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir were two very seperate people, but the poor boy often found his personalities merging into one. The once quiet Adrien could be loud and cracking jokes at the drop of a hat. Chat Noir could be pensive, and easily upset by events outside of the mask. As Chat Noir nobody besides Ladybug noticed this drastic change in attitude. As Adrien, nobody (not even Nino) but one Marinette Dupain-Cheng could tell the difference.

So it was in Marinette he showed his true face.  
Adrien Agreste had four faces.  
One, his public face, whom he showed at home in extent of being out.  
Two, his private face, shown to his friends and classmates  
Three, his heroic face, for when he was Chat Noir, the face that was assumed by many to be his true face, even for quite some time to Ladybug.  
And his final, true face, whom only his mother used to see. That task belonged to Marinette now.

So life continued on for the boy with four faces. The rule of the universe was broken, but nothing bad came of it, so it continued on with not so much as a glance in Adrien's direction.  
Masks and faces were indeed a difficult thing to handle by yourself. It was a good thing he had both Ladybug and Marinette to help him.

 _Imagine his surprise when they turned out to be the same person._

 _ **~Fin~**_


End file.
